Category: Field Gear

A number of my friends and consulting clients have begun talking about making contingency plans to drop entirely off the grid. One of them calls it “going ghost.” His goal: Being ready for a time of repression that would require him to drop off the radar–to essentially become mobile and invisible to authorities. He said that he wanted to have two options: 1.) In CONUS, being ready and ablrice to blend in and travel by road fairly anonymously, and 2.) being ready and able to travel internationally (OCONUS). This whole concept of “going ghost” would be daunting for most of …

Not all threats need to be met with lethal force, because sometimes a threat can be handled by less force. Today, we check out the Pepper Ball LifeLite. Threats No matter what type or where threats come from, they are always a dangerous thing. My own wife works as an elementary grade school teacher. Though in a rural area, danger can spring up at any time. Don’t believe for one moment that “it can’t happen here” or that it can’t happen. It does all the time, no matter where you live or work. We’ve all heard the former saying when …

A topic that comes up in more than half of my consulting calls, is firearms. Most survivalists gravitate toward guns for obvious reasons. If anything, SurvivalBlog could surely be labelled a “guns and groceries” oriented blog, and most of our readers are like-minded. We tend to have large gun collections. We aren’t entirely gun-centric, but our concept of preparedness includes owning guns and having full proficiency in their use. The greatest difficulty vis-a-vis guns for those in our community is not hand-wringing about whether or not we should own them. We’ll leave that pseudo-question up to the leftists. Rather, our …

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have some kind of compact shovel in my vehicles. Some are better than others. Today, we’re taking a close look at the “Jeep Shovel” from Major Surplus. It is quite the little tool. Haunting Army-Navy Surplus Stores When I Was a Kid I grew up haunting army-navy surplus stores back in Chicago, IL when I was a kid. I could, and I did, easily spend hours and hours in those stores. Two, in particular, were just a couple of blocks away from one another in downtown Chicago, so it was easy visiting …

Backup power for when the grid goes down or you have to bug out should be an important part of everyone’s prepping plan. For some, that power supply might be more important than others, especially those with medical conditions. Those might be people on dialysis, CPAP machines, or any other health-related electrical pieces of equipment. Then, there’s the obvious short-term food storage issue we think about relating to our refrigerators and freezers. Long-term uses might include recharging batteries, running Ham radio equipment, et cetera. Real Options For Backup Power For many years, the only real option for backup power was …

Carrying concealed is no easy task, if don’t do it properly. We’re taking a close look at some clothing and accessories today that aids in concealing your handgun on a daily basis. Conceal With The Best, Not Necessarily Easiest I’ve always looked for the best, not necessarily easiest, method of carrying a handgun concealed, as most of the work I’ve done in law enforcement and in private security/private investigations have called for working in “soft clothes” rather than a uniform of any type. I’ve lost track of the number of times over the years I’ve spotted a “concealed” handgun on …

I’ve participated in a few discussions recently about the utility, if any, of smoke grenades and similar devices to an average person, or even a reasonably trained and equipped prepper, in a SHTF situation. There are certainly some valid points to both sides of the arguments. So, this short article is intended to share a few thoughts to help SurvivalBlog readers make up their own minds. Smoke grenade use generally falls into two areas— signaling or obscuration. Large scale smoke, such as from vehicle-mounted or stationary military-style generators, can also have other applications that are beyond the intended scope of …

If you have a need for some extra light when working on cars, firearms, or just about anything, we have tested two outstanding portable light sources– the Maxxeon Work Start Jr. and the Cyclops. We are covering both in this article. Portable Lights We have come a long, long, long way, when it comes to portable lights. It wasn’t all that long ago that we had a two cell, D battery, inexpensive, plastic flashlight. While these were barely okay when it came to lighting things up, they fell far short of what we have today in the way of portable …

Over the years, I have become frustrated with my tribe’s lack of preparation progress. We need common sense preparation. After much reading on the subject, I realized there was no way our budget would support hard-core disaster prepping. This caused me to review our current state of readiness for the most likely threats we would face. The result of this review was that we were not making the best use of the resources we already had in place. In fact, until this review, we were unaware of resources already in place for which no money was spent to acquire. The …

I’ve been a prepper now for more than 40 years. The good news is that there hasn’t been a major nationwide crisis, and that means that I’ve only had to break out my gear for localized/minor emergencies and family crises. And the food that we’ve gardened and bought in bulk has meant that we’ve enjoyed substantially lower food costs. (Not to mention less processed food additives.) But the bad news is that I own a home that is now almost too well stocked. First, some background on our situation: The Rawles Ranch is comfortably remote. It is nearly a 20 …

Recent history has shown us that clean water is almost always one of the first items to become unavailable after a disaster. Since I live within a day’s walk of the Atlantic Ocean and occasionally camp near the shore, I wanted to make a portable water distiller that could handle salt water as well as some of the more contaminated fresh water sources. In this article, I outlined my objectives for a distiller and now am writing how I built one. So far, in part 1, I have provided a materials list and provided the first few steps, which included …

Water is arguably one of the, if not the, most critical element to survival. Recent history has shown us that clean water is almost always one of the first items to become unavailable after a disaster. A Water Distiller To Handle Salt Water As Well Fresh Water Since I live within a day’s walk of the Atlantic Ocean and occasionally camp near the shore, I wanted to make a water distiller that could handle salt water as well as some of the more contaminated fresh water sources. My requirements were: Portable It should be portable. So that means that it …

A recent trip 900 miles from home got me to thinking about what I’d face if the EMP/Solar Flare hit while I was that far away. As a result, I began making plans and thinking through the details of getting back home when that far from home and alone. This is the final part of this article series. The Daily Grind Every activity throughout the day should be focused on securing food, water, and shelter. You are in hunter-gatherer mode, and you need to behave accordingly, if you are going to make it. Pay Attention To Your Feet Pay particular …

A recent trip 900 miles from home got me to thinking about what I’d face if the EMP/Solar Flare hit while I was that far away. As a result, I began making plans and thinking through the details of getting back home when that far from home and alone. I’ve gone over the scenario and also how to travel without a vehicle, by bicycle or walking. Now, let’s get into some more details. Clothing What clothing is needed will be unique to your locale. In my case, I traveled in convertible cargo shorts/pants, Merrill hiking shoes, good sturdy socks, underwear …

I recently had to travel approximately 900 miles by vehicle, due to a family emergency. I was gone for ten days. The drive was easy and uneventful. It covered hundreds of miles of open, rural terrain, but I also traveled through two massive urban metropolises’ and multiple intermediate sized cities. That trip got me to thinking about what I’d face if the EMP/Solar Flare hit while I was that far away from home. I spent the better part of 13 hours each way observing the terrain and thinking about what I would do if it happened. Where would I stay? …

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James Wesley Rawles

James Wesley, Rawles (JWR) is Founder and Senior Editor of SurvivalBlog, the original prepping /survival blog for when the Schumer Hits The Fan (SHTF). He began SurvivalBlog in 2005. It now reaches more than 320,000 unique visitors weekly.
JWR is a journalist, technical writer, and novelist. His survivalist novel Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse, is a modern classic that reached #3 on the New York Times bestsellers list. Two of his other novels have also been best New York Times bestsellers.
Jim is the originator of the American Redoubt movement and a frequent talk show guest on shows such as Alex Jones. He is also a retreat consultant specializing in off-grid living, rural relocation, and survival preparedness.

Hugh James Latimer

Hugh James Latimer (HJL) is the Managing Editor of SurvivalBlog, the original blog for prepping and survival for when SHTF, where he manages the blog's day-to-day operations, applying his diverse technical, management, and editorial expertise.
HJL earned college degrees in engineering, metallurgy, and education and has worked as Technical Editor for five international technical journals and as an engineer for Sandia National Laboratories. His deep scientific background ranges from aerospace engineering to systems administration and owning his own technology-intensive business.
HJL is a firefighter/EMT, and Ham radio operator. He's a Libertarian, an Eagle Scout, and most importantly a devoted follower of Jesus and the Bible.

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